By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter ...THURSDAY Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- While maintaining a healthy weigh...This new finding suggests that overweight women may have a lower risk ... While being overweight has many negative health consequences increas... While this study was a comprehensive assessment of the relation betwe...

THURSDAY, Aug. 5 (HealthDay News) -- While maintaining a healthy weight is linked to a lowered risk of heart disease and diabetes, being overweight may actually protect some women from a form of glaucoma, Harvard researchers say.

This new finding suggests that overweight women may have a lower risk of developing primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG), one of the most common age-related eye diseases. In particular, overweight women may be especially protected from a variant of POAG called normal-tension glaucoma, the researchers say.

"While being overweight has many negative health consequences, increased risk of primary open-angle glaucoma was not one of them," said lead researcher Dr. Louis R. Pasquale, director of the Glaucoma Service at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and an associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.

"While this study was a comprehensive assessment of the relation between body shape and glaucoma, it should not lead to recommendations about adopting an ideal body weight to prevent glaucoma," he added.

The report is published in the August issue of Ophthalmology.

For the study, Pasquale's group collected data on 78,777 women in the Nurses' Health Study and 41,352 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

The researchers found that each unit increase in body mass index (BMI) was associated with a 6 percent lowered risk for normal-tension glaucoma. BMI is a measurement that takes into account a person's height and weight.

In addition, women with a high BMI when they were young also had reduced risk of developing normal-tension glaucoma.

Among men, there was no association between BMI and the risk for POAG, the researchers noted.

Since most of those in the study were white Europeans, these findings may be limited to similar patients, they added.

Glaucoma is a potentially blinding illness that damages the optic nerve. Increased pressure in the eye is linked to optic nerve damage. Effective treatments to control eye pressure are available. But in people with normal-tension glaucoma, optic nerve damage happens even though their eye pressure is not high, the researchers noted.

"There is no stereotypical body shape associated with primary open-angle glaucoma, but the negative relation we found between body mass index and the normal-tension variant of primary open-angle glaucoma in women may give some clues regarding eye-pressure independent mechanisms of optic nerve deterioration in this disease," Pasquale said.

"We postulate that fatty tissue in the body may release hormonally related signals that help prevent optic nerve deterioration in glaucoma," he said.

Dr. Krishna S. Kishor, an assistant professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said usually there is a connection between being overweight and increased eye pressure and a loose correlation between glaucoma and diabetes, which often affect the obese.

"But in overweight women some hormones may be binding with the retina and may be protecting these women from getting glaucoma," he said.

However, Kishor is cautious and thinks more research is needed to see if this correlation holds true. For example, blacks, who are more susceptible to glaucoma, were not well-represented in the study, he noted. In addition, these data were self-reported, which is not always accurate, he added.

In any case, people should not put on weight in hopes of preventing glaucoma, Kishor said. "Don't gain weight thinking that it might somehow protect you," he said.

(Date:8/17/2017)... ... , ... Advice Media, the industry leader in digital marketing for medical practices, has been recognized ... included in the Inc. 5000 for the second time in two years. Shawn Miele, Chief ... 5000 rankings for the second year in a row. It’s extremely difficult to make this ...

(Date:8/16/2017)... ... 16, 2017 , ... Summer days spent with family are priceless. Since August ... suggestions for enjoying the season of sunshine. Add trying something new to this summer’s ... join in on the fun. , Try Something New , Choose ...

(Date:8/16/2017)... ... ... Ten outstanding teachers in the Greater Houston area will be named one ... by a Houston Texans player, two tickets to a Texans game, and other prizes. ... texanschecking.com/stars to nominate their favorite teacher with an essay of no more than 500 ...

(Date:8/16/2017)... ... , ... In a recent survey, eighty-two percent of women reported having cellulite, ... can't always be eliminated by diet and exercise alone, and now for the first ... Dr. Kenneth Rothaus has recently added Cellulaze™ to his practice in New ...

(Date:8/8/2017)... TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 8, 2017 BioLineRx Ltd. ... and immunology, today reports its financial results for the ... and achievements during the second quarter 2017 and to ... on multiple clinical development programs for the Company,s lead ... Phase 3 pivotal study with BL-8040 as novel stem ...

(Date:8/7/2017)... Diplomat Pharmacy, Inc. (NYSE: DPLO ) today announced ... Aug. 7, 2017. ... and will serve as president emeritus during a planned, 90-day ... multiple leadership roles since he joined Diplomat with the acquisition ... decisive, strategic leadership which continues to benefit our patients and ...

(Date:8/4/2017)... Aug. 3, 2017 Agragen, LLC, a ... in the biopharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and aquacultural feed sectors, ... its lead drug candidates, AGR131. This drug is ... from the blood of patients suffering from inflammatory ... bowel disease. ...